Frigidaire Test Drive

Posts Tagged ‘Frigidaire Test Drive’

Last night I cheated, & I woke up regretting it

May 18, 2010 What's Going On

I always feel betrayed when someone gives a post a salacious headline, and then you click over and find out that the title was totally misleading. Doesn’t stop me from doing it though. Now that I’ve got you here, stay with me. This post is about being lazy, and baking, and the universe taking its revenge. So much more interesting than reading about an affair, right? Right?

I’ve been on a bit of a baking kick for the past few months. Ever since we put in our kitchen (with some major help from Frigidaire) I’ve been rediscovering my love of baking. I had always found baking to be a really indulgent experience. The best baked goods tend to require hours in the kitchen, fine ingredients, and complete attention to the task at hand. Baking is also a great way to slow down, to savor, to linger over something. For me baking has never really been about the finished product (I’m more than happy to use mixes and shortcuts if it’s just a pretty finished product I’m after), but about the process, so it’s no big surprise that for over three years, while we were using a crappy disgusting little kitchen with gross counters and a terrible oven, I barely baked. I definitely didn’t want to linger and savor in that space.

So, once I had a space I loved being in I started baking with a vengeance. I was drawn mostly to breads. I now have ample counter space to knead dough on, and a great oven that bakes very evenly, and I’ve been making all of my breads from scratch, by hand. Kneading bread is one of those lost arts. Some people regret the loss of hand-written invitations and phone calls, but I don’t miss those things. Taking a few hours to bake bread, though…heaven.

dough hooks I somehow managed to get married without getting a stand mixer, and I don’t have a bread machine. I have absolutely nothing against either of those things, and if I had them I would probably use them a lot. There are times when I want the bread without the work, and I simply don’t always have time to bake from scratch. But last night, while preparing to make cinnamon bread, I stumbled upon the dough hooks for my very old Oster hand mixer. I had forgotten I had them. They’d never been used. It was late, I was tired, so I decided to give them a try. I don’t know why, except that I was being severely lazy. They weren’t going to save me any time – it’s not like a stand mixer where I could just throw everything in and walk away. And they weren’t going to do a better job than I could, I’m really good at kneading dough. No, it was simply to save my arms the work.

So what happened? I think I broke my mixer. I went to put it away this morning and there’s now something rattling around inside that wasn’t rattling around homemade cinnamon bread before. I think I strained it with the thick dough. Who knows if dough hooks on a hand mixer are really meant for bread dough? The bread was great…the kids and I finished most of it off for breakfast, hot out of the oven. But now I might need a new mixer. And for what? I saved myself a little arm workout, that’s all. I think the universe is trying to tell me not to be lazy, and that it will take out my appliances one-by-one if I don’t comply.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 2. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and the NYC Moms Blog.

Tags: baking, Frigidaire Test Drive

A place for everything, and everything in its place

May 9, 2010 Product Review

I think I may have mentioned before that I’m not the neatest person in the world (shut up). But the one room that’s more likely than any other to be organized in my house is the kitchen. It’s my territory, and I’m the one using it most of the time, so I feel like I have a bit of control over it in a way that doesn’t apply to the rest of the house. I’ve gotten used to having my kitchen a certain way, and when things get put away in the wrong place I get agitated.

Except, of course, for the fridge. The fridge is used by everybody, all day long, and I’ve never had much control over it. But our new Frigidaire Professional Refrigerator has made organization easier, and I’ve been able to assign places for all of the most commonly used stuff in the fridge. Since it’s easy to see and get to everything, things stay neat. And it holds an incredible amount of stuff without seeming crowded.

The Freezer

The freezer worried me a bit because I’ve never had a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer before, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to fit big things in. So far, so good: I haven’t bought a single thing that hasn’t fit, including a Cold Stone ice cream cake. And since there are so many shelves and baskets, organizing the freezer has been a breeze. There’s a big icemaker to work around, but the designers didn’t waste any space.

There’s a place at the top perfect for ice cream
The shelves are well-spaced
The shelf baskets are great for loose items, irregularly-shaped items that aren’t in boxes, and small items
The door baskets tip out for putting food in, then close up to allow the door to close

The Refrigerator

The refrigerator side is even more versatile. My favorite feature is the shelf with the crank. Have you ever brought home something extra-tall and had to move your fridge shelves to accommodate it? You can raise and lower this shelf with a few turns without having to take the shelf out and reposition it. Other favorite features:

The butter shelf in the door is big enough for a butter dish plus other stuff (I also keep my Crisco sticks and some light butter in there)
There’s a very handy little rack in the door that holds six pop cans
At the very bottom of the door (space that is usually wasted) there’s a narrow shelf perfect for flat bottles, like salad dressing
There’s a hanging egg shelf that allows for the space under your carton of eggs to be used
The fridge shelves pull out about half-way, making it easier to get to the things in the back
The shelves are solid, so if you spill something you’ve only got one shelf to clean instead of the whole fridge
There are three big vegetable and fruit bins
There are lights at several different levels, not just at the top, so you can easily see what’s in the entire fridge, top to bottom

The key to keeping food fresh in any fridge is to let the air circulate. Since we now have plenty of space in our fridge and air is getting around much better, we’ve been able to raise the fridge’s temperature to 38 degrees, which will save us some money in the long-run.

The freezer is easy to organize, with plenty of shelves

The door baskets tip out for easy loading

My husband still hates that hoard frozen bananas, but at least now they have their own place

My husband still hates that I hoard frozen bananas, but at least now they have their own place

The fridge door area where the veggie bins are located is usually wasted space, but this fridge makes great use of it

The three big vegetable bins are perfect for my Fresh Direct adiction

The three big vegetable bins are perfect for my Fresh Direct addiction

I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Refrigerator, Range/Microwave, Washer/Dryer set, and a Dishwasher to facilitate my review.

Other Frigidaire reviews:

My Frigidaire dishwasher has given me back an hour a day

Perfect popcorn is just the beginning

My new Frigidaire fridge: no fingerprints

I miss my Frigidaire convection oven!

At least my dishwasher is flexible

I thought metal was a no-no in microwaves?

Tags: fghc2344kf, Frigidaire Test Drive